The land of pineapples and Aloha is usually reserved as a honeymoon destination for the majority of Mainlanders. Like most vacation destinations, it’s oft forgotten about as a place where people actually live. And yet upon closer examination, Hawai’i is a good forecast of where other, more politically influential, states are headed.
While California is generally looked to as the cultural canary in the coalmine for the rest of the U.S., there’s a conservative nudge within California that sometimes effectively slows down the Golden State’s worst impulses.
But Hawai’i has no such contrary undercurrent. We’ve only had one Republican governor in the history of the state, and one election that cast our 4 electoral votes to a Republican (Reagan’s 2ndelection).
Long before Obamacare was mandated, Hawai’i functioned under the same method of providing healthcare to all within its borders. And before Virginia allowed for abortions up to the point of birth, Hawai’i was the first state to legalize abortion (before the Roe v. Wade decision) and the Guttmacher Institute lists Hawai’i as one of the “freest” for abortion access using the same vague language of “health” of the mother as a factor that was so shocking when it passed in Virginia.
With zero restrictions on parental notification, waiting periods or public funding, it’s unsurprising that Hawai’i is in the top ten list for states that spend the most on publicly funded abortions despite being #40 in the U.S. for population.
While our laws may be reason enough to reconsider moving to our state, our open corruption should seal the deal.
This year the FBI has labeled the amount of investigations into Hawai’i as “unprecedented.” The most populous county Honolulu alone is under investigations into our island-wide Honolulu Police Department, the Chief Prosecutor individually as well as his whole department, and fighting off a variety of potential FTA investigations into the mysteriously disappearing funding for a boondoggle of a rail system that has increased into the $9.2 billion range (though likely much higher) for a track that only ever potentially projected to 20 miles in length.
Hawai’i’s Department of Education is uniquely a state department, and one of the largest, receiving somewhere in the realm of $3 billion. Despite a spate of local probes into HIDOE’s reported corruptions and crumbling infrastructure (a majority of classrooms do not even have air conditioning in this tropical climate), the department has not been audited in the last 50 years.
Homelessness is in the public conversation nationally but Hawai’i has been living with rising homeless persons, very often the mentally ill or drug-addicted, in public parks and business district streets for many years. Attacks on pedestrians and tourists are ramping up, with HPD citing low arrests on difficulty in locating attackers and mental illness as their reason to send violent attackers to the hospital instead of jail only to be released back on the streets within an hour or two of capture.
Looking from the outside, Hawai’i may still seem far away. But how does the Hawai’i state government get away with so much abuse for those who call Hawai’i home?
The Hawai’i State Legislature is effectively a single-party body with only 5 Republicans of its 51 members and 0 of 25 in the Senate.
The Democratic Party is supported by the highest rate of unionized employees and the lowestvoter turnout in the country. Voter registration does not require any identification without even an address requirement (you may describe landmarks in the area you claim to reside).
On June 24th, our governor, David Ige, announced that he does not intend to veto a bevy of bills that will further harm the civil liberties of residents of the 50thstate. These bills include:
With only 4 electoral votes, Hawai’i may be the last state you worry about, but we are the usually among the first states to push the boundaries of civil liberties for the more influential states to follow.
Google’s motto, at least when it came to its internal code of conduct, was once “Don’t be evil.” What, then, do you call it when you censor videos that have to do with your own conduct on your own platform? Because that seems to be exactly what Google is doing with an undercover video released…
Running for political office is not the career path that retired U.S. Army Brigadier Gen. Don Bolduc had considered, as he often said that he was far from a politician. But the war veteran changed his mind after witnessing the gross inaction and partisan politics in Washington, D.C. His incumbent Democratic two-term opponent, New Hampshire…
Here’s a headline to ponder: “Democratic group’s poll shows Trump vulnerable with his base on health care: American Bridge is planning a $50 million advertising campaign targeting small-town Trump supporters and swing voters.”
That headline appeared in Politico on June 24; the article explained that the goal of the Democratic group American Bridge is to chip away at Trump’s percentages in red rural areas.As American Bridge’s president, Bradley Beychok, said, “We’re trying to go from losing these segments [of voters] 85-15 to maybe 75-25.”
Such a nibble-around-the-edges strategy could bear fruit.For instance, in 2016, Donald Trump won 82 percent of the vote in Sioux County, Iowa, giving him a margin in that county of more than 12,000 votes.In the meantime, Trump won Iowa with only 52 percent, a mere 48,000 votes out of nearly a million-and-a-half ballots cast.So if American Bridge really could chisel down Trump’s supermajority numbers, the Democrats might succeed in flipping the Hawkeye State next year.
According to Politico, health care is the wedge-issue that American Bridge intends to wedge wider.Relying on American Bridge data, the article reports:
Just 25 percent of respondents gave Trump a positive rating for “reducing health care costs,” compared to 67 percent who rated him negatively, while they split against Trump 39-51 on “taking on the drug and pharmaceutical companies.”
Now American Bridge, of course, is a group founded by David Brock, the Bill Clinton-basher-turned-fanboy-turned-high-dollar-fundraiser-turned-Hillary Clinton-groupie.Indeed, Brock was so flagrantly out front for Hillary in 2016 that the Washington Post blasted him in a piece entitled, “One Hillary Clinton supporter’s rotten political empire.” The article approvingly quoted Sen. Bernie Sanders calling Brock “the scum of the earth.”(Over the years, many Breitbart News writers have closely chronicled Brock.)
Indeed, because Brock is such a creature of the bicoastal elites, it’s a safe bet that American Bridge will never mention him in its advertisements.So while Brock is spending his time in the Hamptons and Beverly Hills, plotting his next six- or seven-figure soirée, Republicans would be smart to keep reminding folks who it is that’s giving Brocks his bucks.For instance, George Soros, having already given millions to American Bridge, just last year gave the group another $300,000.
Yet if American Bridge can keep its focus on health care—and if Republican “oppo” groups aren’t paying close enough attention—then Brock and his money could put a dent in Trump and the GOP.Why?Because the Democrats have the edge on health care.
We might consider: In last year’s midterm election, health care was the single most important issue, both in terms of campaign advertising and voters’ intentions, as measured by exit polling.And, of course, in November, the Democrats did well, picking up 41 House seats, seven governorships, and six state-legislative chambers.(At the same time, the GOP scored a net of plus two in the U.S. Senate, so the news wasn’t all bad.)
Thus we can see: The Democrats want to talk about health care, and American Bridge is eager to amplify that message.
Yet in fact, Democrats weren’t always eager to talk about health care.Just a decade ago, in 2009-2010, President Obama and his party struggled to get a national health-insurance bill passed, and as they slogged, pushing their unpopular legislation, the Tea Party erupted.As a result, the Democrats got clobbered in the 2010 midterm elections.And although Obama was re-elected in 2012, two years later in 2014, the Republicans won another big midterm victory. And of course, 2016 saw the triumph of Trump.
Interestingly, these shifting electoral fortunes closely correlate with support for Obamacare, as measured by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s monthly tracking poll.A look at the numbers shows that Obamacare was “underwater” for most of the time from 2010 to the end of 2016—although it blipped up in 2012, as voters rallied around Obama’s personal re-election.Yet at its low point, in July 2014, Obamacare was down massively, by a net of 16 points.
Yet then, after the 2016 election, support for Obamacare started to rise.Over the last two-and-a-half years, its net favorability has reached as high as plus 12 points, and as of June 2019, it was plus six.
So now we’re starting to see why Trump and the Republicans have been mostly frustrated in their push to repeal-and-replace—or at least repeal—Obamacare. (This author wrote extensively about that GOP effort in 2017-2018, including here.)
To put the matter bluntly, Obamacare has been finally becoming popular.And that popularity helps explain why a recent AP-NORC poll found that 40 percent of Americans trust Democrats on health care, compared to just 23 percent who trust Republicans.That’s a 17-point gap in favor of the Dems, enough to cool down the repeal-and-replace ardor of most Republicans.
Indeed, these days, as “Medicare for All” increasingly supplants Obamacare as the Democrats’ big goal, it’s worth watching a broader metric of public enthusiasm for national health insurance.According to Gallup, when Americans are asked whether or not “it is the responsibility of the federal government to make sure Americans have healthcare coverage,” 57 percent say, yes, Uncle Sam has that responsibility.
To be sure, such Bernie Sanders-friendly numbers aren’t the final word—there’s never a final word in politics.And so as the Democrats prepare a massive new health bill, Republicans should be ready with their calculators, their microscopes, and their fine-toothed combs.
Yet for the time being, when there are no specifics to be scrutinized, we can see from the polling numbers that American Bridge, hammering the healthcare issue in rural areas, could have a significant impact.
So now, looking ahead, we can see the decision on health care that the voters will likely face in 2020:
The Democrats will vaguely promise every American free healthcare coverage; perhaps their plan will look a lot like the plan enjoyed by grandma and grandpa—that is, Medicare for All.
The Republican plan will vaguely promise every American access to a free-market health-insurance plan, including vague commitments about protecting those with pre-existing conditions.
So what will happen?Which approach will the voters choose?We don’t yet know, of course.So perhaps in the meantime, we should put it this way: For the sake of Republicans, it’s a good thing that there are issues other than health care to be debated.That is, issues ranging from the economy, to Iran, to the Supreme Court, to the latest dumb thing said by AOC.One rather suspects that Trump and the GOP will be campaigning harder on those hot buttons than on health care.
Of course, there is one healthcare issue that’s supremely, albeit somewhat vaguely, popular: medical cures.After all, everyone wants to be healthier.
In his 2019 State of the Union Address, Trump spent considerable time highlighting a proposal for a new special effort to fight pediatric cancers, and he received sustained bipartisan applause.Sadly, not much has been heard about that idea since.
Indeed, in some alternative presidential timeline, it might have been possible for Trump to launch a whole “Cure Strategy,” coordinating public and private efforts on behalf of medical research.Such a Cure Strategy would help shift the debate from the difficult topic of Obamacare, pro or con, to the happier topic of making disease go away, just as we once made polio go away. As this author has arguedmanytimes here at Breitbart News, health insurance is great, but health itself is greater.
Of course, by now, in mid-2019, it might be too late to gin up a comprehensive approach to a Cure Strategy in time for the 2020 elections.Such a strategy, after all, would require cooperation from the Democrats in Congress, and they’re in no mood to help Trump on anything.We can hope that the “window of opportunity” will open up again after the 2020 election.
Yet in the meantime, as Brock’s American Bridge ads pound Trump and the GOP on health care, let’s not forget to mention: George Soros and his fellow left-wing billionaires are funding American Bridge.
The New Republic, which in the past few years has faded from obscurity to invisibility, has discovered what is all too obvious to even the casual observer of politics. Namely that polls are, get this, inaccurate. The one who went on this voyage of discovery to tell us what we already knew is staff writer of long political experience, Walter Shapiro. And since Shapiro has worked as a standup comedian (Laugh Factory?) he does provide us with some chuckles at the expense of the news media which has demonstrated an absurd dependence on polling despite the fact polls have become even more…
Eric Cochran worked at Pinterest for nearly two years, creating open-source code for a variety of apps. But with a June 24 op-ed in Newsweek, he’s exposing the censorship skeletons in the platform’s closet. Cochran says he was an idealist who “wanted to do good” with the technology he created. “I thought Pinterest could be different from its sibling tech giants. I hoped Pinterest might be a tech company that respected its users and was honest with them.”
A new revelation from Project Veritas has found that YouTube and Google labeled popular conservative commentators as “Nazis.” In a leaked document published on June 25, an email from a Google employee, Liam Hopkins, described Ben Shapiro, Dr. Jordan Peterson, and Dennis Prager as “nazis using dog whistles.”
You may know Teen Vogue from such informative articles as “Karl Marx: Dream Guy,” and “Everything you Wanted to Know About Anal Sex but Were Too Decent to Ask,” and “Kids Aborting Kids: A How-To Guide.” But here comes the mag’s hot new “Magical Orgasms” feature! Keeping to the theme of the left’s flirtation with the occult, Teen Vogue posted a guide to “sex magic” today.
Judicial Watch has been working to get their hands on the 302 notes of Barack Obama’s FBI interview about the attempted sale of his Illinois Senate seat and the FBI is fiercely fighting to keep the notes under wraps.
Shortly after Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, then-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich attempted to sell Obama’s vacant Senate seat in exchange for political favors.
Blagojevich reportedly approached Barack Obama and other intermediaries about the plot, however, Obama declined to make a deal…according to media reports.
Blago eventually approached Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr,’s supporters and offered Obama’s Senate seat in exchange for $1.5 million in ‘campaign donations’ but broke off the deal when he found out the feds were wiretapping him.
Blago ended up taking the fall and landed in prison while Obama skated scrutiny as he entered his first term as US President.
Over the course of two criminal trials in 2010 and 2011, Blagojevich was convicted of 18 separate offenses and, in December 2011, was sentenced to 168 months in jail. In 2015, an appellate court overturned five of Blagojevich’s convictions and affirmed the remainder. On August 12, 2016, Blagojevich was resentenced to the same, 68-month jail term he had received previously.
Judicial Watch had asked the FBI to produce the 302s, pursuant to FOIA, in June 2011. The FBI confirmed the records’ existence in 2012, but denied the request, asserting that the 302s were exempt from disclosure under FOIA Exemption 7(A) because Blagojevich’s criminal case was still ongoing at the time. Judicial Watch filed suit to try to obtain the 302s in May 2016, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Blagojevich’s convictions. It closed that initial lawsuit while Blagojevich was being resentenced. Judicial Watch refiled its lawsuit after Blagojevich was resentenced.
Over 10 years ago, FBI interviewed Barack Obama about sale of his Senate seat. There’s a FBI "302" report of interview.
Rather than releasing document, DOJ has fought @JudicialWatch tooth and nail to keep it secret.
As expected, the FBI on Tuesday moved to protect Barack Obama and a court ruled the FBI notes from his interview about the attempt to sell his Senate should be kept secret.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton vowed to appeal again and keep fighting for these documents.
“FBI/DOJ going out of their way to protect Obama. Today, a court ruled FBI can keep interview notes of Obama from his Senate seat-selling scandal secret. We will appeal, again,” Fitton said.
FBI/DOJ going out of their way to protect Obama. Today, a court ruled FBI can keep interview notes of Obama from his Senate seat-selling scandal secret. We will appeal, again. https://t.co/TuO8QFr1eq
“The FBI interviewed Barack Obama about the selling of his Senate seat. The American people should finally get to see these FBI interview reports,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The public has a right to know precisely how Obama and his senior White House advisors Emanuel and Jarrett responded to Blagojevich’s corrupt attempts sell Obama’s Senate seat.”
Obama’s vacant Senate seat and White House seat were both manipulated by fixers and up for sale…strange coincidence, isn’t it?
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